mav,
you surprised me this time. i am sure you read the whole speech. how could you only see assertions ? jeez..

let me expalain...

he didn't blatantly deny that iraq didn't possess chemical or biological weapons, or the CIA and the defense secretary were lying (which they were). what he said was iraq could not be an imminent threat to the US or to its neighbours.

the two main reasons being...
1) faltering iraqi economy
2) weakening iraqi military

and he also pointed out the consequences of the war, if the US were to go for it. i took them 2 years to realize that his 'reasonings' were right. it did prove to be a dumb war!

all in all, the US was in a dire need to fight back after sep 11. the incumbent, inept bush government and their pathetic politics chose iraq and saddam hussein. very few people voted against the approval (for various reasons--to resonate with bush's decision, for political advantage or failure to judge).

barring dennis kucinich, none of the democratic presidential candidates voted against it and that included edwards, clinton, joe biden and chris dodd.

you may argue obama was in a safe side not being in senate. but as i mentioned in the other post, he was not completely. he knew he was running for the senate. he was able to make the right judgment and most importantly be clear and vocal about it unlike many others. he didn't shy away, for various political reasons, from speaking his heart out. that makes a difference and it eventually did.